General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned - Seven Countries In Five Years

[Reeve]

its an interesting video. Gen clark comes across as fair and credible. i also find it interesting when related to president eisenhowers speach warning of the growth of the military industrial complex.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&h...&v=8y06NSBBRtY



from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-h...strial-complex

While all true, whenever I hear people talking about the military-industrial complex, my mind automatically labels them as a clueless hippy, because the term generally gets used as a catch all "corporations and militaries are EVIL, yo!" when the reality is much more nuanced than that.

[Deleted]

The US makes plans for the invasion of every country on Earth, I'm pretty sure. Doesn't mean we plan to act on them.

But yeah, the invasion of Iraq always felt like it was out of the blue for no reason to me.

there was a good documentary on a while ago about the US planned war with the UK just before WW1, was a good watch. but it also talked about the rainbow plans or what ever they were called, basically at the time the US had a plan on how to attack just about every country.

[Shadowmelded]

there was a good documentary on a while ago about the US planned war with the UK just before WW1, was a good watch. but it also talked about the rainbow plans or what ever they were called, basically at the time the US had a plan on how to attack just about every country.

Don't most countries have plans like that, 'just in case' ?

[soulcrusher]

watch the video and then comment, its not just about having a plan its about acting on those plans.

[Deleted]

Don't most countries have plans like that, 'just in case' ?

yeah most likely, well i dont know actually. maybe most have plans for countires theres a high chance of going to war with. but i doubt the UK for example has an invasion plan for Japan right now. most are probably how to defend the borders of their country in the event of an attack.

[Mnevis]

watch the video and then comment, its not just about having a plan its about acting on those plans.

Without discussing it with the population at large, but substituting fear-mongering and cherry-picked 'intelligence'.

Wesley Clark's a cool guy, what's he up to these days? I suppose I could look it up....

Oh. Ethanol lobbyist and board of some minor oil company.

[Reeve]

Out of the blue? Come on, Clinton was even working a path that could lead nowhere but war. Not saying he wanted that war but it could end no other way. Iraq was a dead country walking. Well lying around i guess since countries dont move much.. sliding slowly along the .. never mind

Or do people actually believe you can take a country and it can prove it has no biological weapons. Let us take one that does not. Go ahead Sweden, we know you have none but prove it. Because you could make such weapons if you wanted so we have to be sure. It is only fair.

Granted they used to have such weapons but if anything that only makes it harder, even if you document dismantling all weapons you had you would be left with one simple truth: you could have made more and you could be making more. War was the only end game, it was a given, Clinton worked that path, it was ending as any sane man would have predicted. Cooperation is irrelevant

Completely out of the blue. We don't require a country to prove they have no WMDs. We require them to let us send inspectors to sites we suspect of housing WMDs. And when they don't, there are a lot of options available to us before invasion.

Iraq was especially out of the blue to me because at the time we were embroiled in hunting down al'Qaeda, which had very little to do with Iraq. We were involved heavily in the war in Afghanistan, and splitting our resources seemed reckless, stupid, and unnecessary at the time. So yes, out of the blue.

---------- Post added 2012-12-07 at 04:19 PM ----------

Don't most countries have plans like that, 'just in case' ?

I imagine most of the countries that aren't superpowers or regional powers have more defensively oriented plans. Like I doubt Latvia has a plan to invade the US, for example, but they probably have plans to defend themselves in the event of a Russian, Finnish, Lithuanian, Estonian, Swedish, Danish, or Polish invasion.

[Skippy88]

Not surprised. There were a lot of rumors that they had the plan to invade Iraq drawn up even before 09/11 and they just used that justification to do the actual invading. The 5 year timetable though is laughable. They obviously thought that each country would fall in less than a year after they started the attack.

[Reeve]

Not surprised. There were a lot of rumors that they had the plan to invade Iraq drawn up even before 09/11 and they just used that justification to do the actual invading. The 5 year timetable though is laughable. They obviously thought that each country would fall in less than a year after they started the attack.

If all we wanted to do was destroy their military, depose their government and leave, that timetable would have been realistic. Charitable even. But since we decided it was in our best interest to try to rebuild, yeah 5 years to take out 7 countries was just silly.

[Deleted]

there was a good documentary on a while ago about the US planned war with the UK just before WW1, was a good watch. but it also talked about the rainbow plans or what ever they were called, basically at the time the US had a plan on how to attack just about every country.

Yeah, I think the Middle Eastern war plans are related to something like this. Wouldn't surprise me at all if they had some attack plans on Saudi Arabia just in case al-Qaida was stationed there. Wouldn't be too worried personally.

[soulcrusher]

all the more reason to go back and listen to Eisenhowers warnings on the need to be vigilant re the Military Industrial Complex as thats where we are right now. endless war.

[Mnevis]

This isn't like "oh hey, we have a giant file full of preliminary invasion plans and military information for every country in the world" this is a couple think tanks' worth of dudes deciding that our foreign policy should be to remake the middle east and not discussing it with the country (and then coming to power and setting to work on remaking the middle east, spending a trillion dollars and thousands of lives in the process, because they thought we had a window to enlarge American power).

I'm pleased we aren't at war with Iran. The situation's still tense obviously, but I totally believe Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, and Wolfowitz expected that they were next after Iraq. I'm sure we still have plans drawn up regarding strikes and probably even invasions of Iran, but the center of America did change its opinion somewhat about interventions in the Middle East during the last decade.

[Trunksee]

Meh, nothing to surprising. With the us need for oil it may explain the new push for fuel effiency since we werent able to influence the whole region. Would have been good long term benefits to doing this, but like what was said the time spent in Iraq and the backlash in the US probably changed the plans. Not a bad idea kind of how the world has always worked.

[Priestiality]

The US makes plans for the invasion of every country on Earth, I'm pretty sure. Doesn't mean we plan to act on them.

But yeah, the invasion of Iraq always felt like it was out of the blue for no reason to me.

This. After World War I the US drafted war plans with: Canada, Mexico, Greenland, Japan, China, Russia, Germany, UK, France, Spain, Iceland, The Philippines, Central America as a whole, South America as a whole, and even right on their own shores (civil uprising they called it). To think they stopped is just ridiculous.

---------- Post added 2012-12-07 at 11:46 AM ----------

Yeah, I think the Middle Eastern war plans are related to something like this. Wouldn't surprise me at all if they had some attack plans on Saudi Arabia just in case al-Qaida was stationed there. Wouldn't be too worried personally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...oded_war_plans Yep.

[openair]

About ten days after 9/11. So I came back to see him a few weeks later.

So still in 2001. "7 countries in 5 years." Or 2006... So they only made plans. In reality they only have excuted 2/7 of those plans within 11 years...

Its called preparation. What if they had found information linking al-Qaeda to some other country? Drawing some basic plans as far as logistics and routes into countries is not the same thing as "7 countries in 5 years."

[smelltheglove]

doesnt our military actually have a plan against zombie apocalypse or some shit? these guys have a plan for EVERYTHING they can possibly think of

[Mnevis]

There's a huge difference between "We have a plan should we need it" and "This is the plan". Huge.

Wesley Clark, General, Presidential candidate, is telling us that ten days after 9/11 he was told that it was "The Plan".

In this other speech, he mentions (~4:00) that Wolfowitz told him back in 91 that some of them thought they should remake the Middle East, now that they knew Russia wouldn't interfere. 2001, neocons gain a great deal of power. We all know what happened in the years after that.

[openair]

There's a huge difference between "We have a plan should we need it" and "This is the plan". Huge.

Wesley Clark, General, Presidential candidate, is telling us that ten days after 9/11 he was told that it was "The Plan".

In this other speech, he mentions (~4:00) that Wolfowitz told him back in 91 that some of them thought they should remake the Middle East, now that they knew Russia wouldn't interfere. 2001, neocons gain a great deal of power. We all know what happened in the years after that.

Then he was misinformed. If it was "The Plan" it would have been reality by now. Its 6 years too late. "The Plan" never happened. Also i like how you compare "some of them thought" to "The Plan." Neither actually happened. Notice its the same general both times. Seems more like he just has issues with taking hearsay from people calling him "SIR" or someone vocalizing their concerns too seriously. Thats not how the chain of command works.

[Mnevis]

The US found out it was not entirely omnipotent, and Iraq didn't exactly welcome their new overlords.

It's entirely possible that it was The Plan, we got started on it, but couldn't finish it. Wouldn't you agree?

[Deleted]

What the hell is wrong with these people? Its crap like this why people hate america, you spend so much on a militarya nd then look for places to use it....on very thin grounds. Its not normal americans, its the nutters you choose to lead you.